Yep - and the remaining workers, if they have any qualifications at all, are refusing to work for bad. Low pay, horrible customers, worse managers, constantly changing work hours, hours limited so as to not pay benefits - the list goes on and on. We have become accustomed to being served by people who are simply finding better opportunities and that is reflected in our experience as customers.
I think for many older people (I am 68) they do not realize how awful working conditions are in service jobs and even in the lower level office jobs.
My daughter works for a restaurant chain, with most of her income from tips. For months she kept complaining her paycheck was wrong. She borrowed from us, got her landlord to extend her rent payment, etc. Finally after months of this, they have really looked into and she gets paid thousands in back pay. Good she got the money but it was so hard when no one was doing anything. She had us so that helped her but not everyone has this.
When I had a part time job in high school and college I had a set number of hours that I worked each week and a set schedule with one day of the way varying a bit.
For people in the service jobs now it isn't that way. Knowing how many hours you will get can vary from week to week. Even worse, there is no consistency to the schedule. That makes it hard to get a second job. One of my kids worked over 30 years in a row due to being scheduled back to back shifts (on different days but functionally back to back) and being short handed so needing to work extra.
And, then the cost of rent and the requirement usually to earn 3 times the cost of rent is just insane. Yes, yes, you can get a roommate. My daughter a few years ago rented an apartment and a couple of months later her roommate vanished and show she was responsible for the full thing. And, even if you find a new roommate, they can be flaky.
I just think that things are materially far harder for people now than it used to be.
And, no, there are not enough people to do everything, particularly with us Boomers retiring. Some things can be automated (which is fine with me) but not everything.
And, there just seems to an unwillingness among business to pay employees a reasonable amount and to give them somewhat sane working conditions with consistent hours and schedule.
Self-checkout is a bottle-neck customers seem to rail against. Retail is just going that way for better or for worse.
I read a tweet the other day where the author assumed almost everyone hated self checkout. He was surprised that many replies like it. So he did some research and linked to an article. The main takeaway from the article was that although self-checkout has lots of negatives for stores (theft goes up, people to oversee self checkout have to paid more than cashiers, self checkout is slow), the bottom line was that customers basically do want the self checkout. So stores have to offer it because customers want it.
I am ambivalent about it. Theoretically I would rather self checkout than wait in a long line for a cashier. The problem is that every store has a different process of self checkout so every time I do it I feel I am having to learn a new task and I am slow since I don't do it often. And, it is easy to mess up and then have it all take way longer. The bottom line to me is that it needs to be easier to do.
Entry level jobs were never intended to pay the rent. They are there to get experience and then move up or move on.
This is completely unrealistic. If I am someone needing an entry level job I may nonetheless still need to pay my rent. If I can't pay my rent from my job then I can't move up or move on. And, to be honest, even many jobs that are not entry level do not pay enough money to pay the rent even when working full time. That may have been true in the past, but not now.
Yep, moving is a good solution for some. Surprised more aren’t doing it.
We are experiencing one of the downsides of extremely low unemployment rates (currently around 3.5%). Employers are having trouble hiring enough competent staff. With a low unemployment rate, they have the choice of not hiring people, hiring fewer people or hiring very low-quality people - incompetent, lazy, poor attitude, poor customer service awareness, undependability, lack of basic job skills, not too bright, etc. When the unemployment rate is higher, many of these people would probably not get hired. Overall job performance and quality of service would probably be higher. Many economists suggest that a 5% unemployment is optimal. Most qualified people are able to get jobs and employers are not forced to hire extremely unqualified people. We have to acknowledge that some people are just not employable.
Another factor is changing demographics. As predicted, there are far fewer young people, people who typically seek and accept lower paying entry level jobs. We have been warned for decades that this would happen but somehow, we are surprised that it is actually happening. This demographic change has wide implications from colleges meeting enrollment goals, military recruitment challenges and having enough workers paying into Social Security. One consequence is that it is projected that hundreds of colleges will shut down in the next few years due to decreasing numbers of prospective students.
The complexity of the current job market is impacting childcare. The same labor crunch is making it difficult to hire childcare workers and is driving up the cost of childcare. Is it realistic or ethical to expect an under qualified single parent to take an entry level job when the low salary may not even cover the cost of childcare on top of other necessities such as housing, food and transportation? Employment should not result in a net negative financial situation.
Another factor is reduced immigration. Immigrants, legal and illegal, tend to have strong work ethics and are more likely to take jobs that are low paying, difficult and low prestige. Jobs that many of us look down upon.
Basically, we have to accept the consequences of reality, political decisions, and human nature. Low unemployment sounds good but there are consequences. Increased immigration, preferably legal, would help offset the consequences of changing demographics. The reality is that even illegal immigrants can be beneficial. They are the most likely to take the least desirable jobs, pay taxes and cannot seek Social Security or other government benefits. We need to rationally and responsibly promote laws and policies that will help us address the many complex challenges we face as a society.
I know that these issues are much more complex than my post suggests. Their complexity though suggests that they require more than simple political campaign slogans to solve. They require thoughtful solutions that should seek to avoid unanticipated negative consequences. As responsible citizens and human beings, we owe it to ourselves, our country and our society to strive to make the right decisions.
